The fleet rode on the quiet waters of the bay. The vague outlines of its
multiple shapes were indistinct, grey and shadowy, constantly changing like
some fantastic creature from worlds of legend. Muffled sounds made their way
through the morning air as hull plates cooled by the long night began to
expand in the warmth of the rising sun, strangely emphasizing the sounds of
wakeful men completing the work of this all important day. For today, after
endless years of preparation, the most powerful fleet ever assembled would set
out on the mission longed for since times long past, times of which only
legends and a deep, all controlling fear remained.

Untold ages before, from far across the water, had come an invader so fierce,
a foe so ruthless, that even the merest whisper that it lived caused brave men
to look behind them and mothers to clutch their children more tightly to their
breast. So great was the dread of this evil that to this day it remained a
nameless terror casting its shadow over all life.

High on the hills behind the harbour, beneath the shadowed ramparts from which
long metal fingers extended in a restless search for strange and sudden ships,
lay the preserved ruins of the old city, physically all that remained to bear
witness to the events that had made this people what they now were. Scattered
monuments drew attention to an act of wickedness so vulgar as to make even the
cruellest shudder. Few came here by choice, save on the regular days of
remembrance. Certainly none ever danced these flowered slopes in spring. That
these monuments existed at all, that some nameless, deathless foe had caused
such terror, was sufficient to cause these people take precautions that it
should never occur again. Not now, not in the adulthood of their children, nor
in the adulthood of their children's children on through countless
generations. Fear moved them. Fear was the reason for the great fleet waiting
in the harbour. Fear exchanged the pleasure of the heart for the desire of
safety. Fear would move these ships at last to sail across the waters they had
always, ever only sailed along. Today the fleet built by fear would venture on
its single act of voluntary aggression, to seek out and destroy the nameless,
faceless enemy so that fear could no longer cloud their minds or guide their
plans and joy in life again could live.

Slowly, without fanfare or parade, the fleet awoke. Tiny craft wound their way
to and from shore as personnel and supplies were carried to the ships and
received. Silent figures along the wharves bore mute testimony of the families
that the fleet was bound to protect, those who would remain, remembering loved
ones in endless prayer. Quiet waves and whispers, in some cases a long and
tender embrace, tears scarcely held back, all shrouded in the grey blanket of
mist, as final farewells were made to beloved friends, fathers and mothers,
sons and daughters. No trumpet sounded its call to arms, no marching band
guided the warriors onward. All was silent lest the enemy, warned, would make
provision and put to an end this plan of generations. Beneath the fort on the
hill families and friends on the wharves looked on as the fleet slowly came
alive and was guided out to the open sea by the multitude of tugs and pilot
vessels, shrouded in black and dusky greys by the mist. Those the fleet would
die to save, watched as it sailed silently out to the horizon, seeming to
hesitate at its edge and then was gone over the brink.

* * *

They came from beyond the horizon immense, silently, without warning, no
sign to mark their presence but the sudden bursts of flame from innumerable
weapons. Seconds later shells screaming overhead shattered the silence of
the early dawn. Great fountains of earth mingled with flesh and wood and
stone erupted skyward destroying peace and casting it aside to be borne away
on vast columns of smoke and dust. For a time that seemed eternal the
thunderous assault poured its wrath upon the unsuspecting city, casting its
shattered ruins upon the hills where no foot would ever again dance in
spring, sowing the seed of fear whose harvest would never cease.

* * *

But Jesus said to him, "Put your sword in its place, for all who take the
sword will perish by the sword."